Happy Friday everybody!

I’ve had a lovely day because throughout January, Bishop Paul has asked us all to take an extra day off each week! We worked hard to get everything finished by yesterday evening and today has been a lovely day of rest, reading and walking.

Overall, this week is getting 7/10.

On Sunday I went to the joint service and I was in charge of tech. Afterwards, I met with a funeral family in church to check that the CDs for the service worked. Two did, one didn’t. This led to a couple of stressful days before the funeral on Tuesday. But in the end, the day was saved by verger Liz who found a spare copy of the song left over from another funeral. I was so relieved!

Monday was mostly funeral prep, zoom calls and meetings and on Tuesday I did the funeral, which had been very stressful in the planning for a variety of reasons. In the end, though, it went really well and I’ve had two emails from family members saying ‘thank you’, which is lovely. I was unusually nervous about it all, and it was a real answer to prayer that it went so well!

On Wednesday, I did Foodbank but stuck to the jobs behind the desk. Nathan and I agreed that I should have as little face to face contact with people as I can because technically, I’m now vulnerable. It made me a bit sad to not be on the front desk, but there’s always still plenty of other jobs to be done! Overall, we fed 16 people. Afterwards, I filmed a member of church doing the reading for Sunday. He also brought me two bunches of roses because it was the first time he had seen me since the pregnancy announcement!

Yesterday, myself and some others from the churches in Norris Green filmed a zoom assembly. In the afternoon, I did another funeral. This one was less complicated than the first, and there was something beautiful about being in the crem as the orange setting sun came through the windows. When I got home, I took myself out for a walk to clear my head before cracking on with my sermon for Sunday.

Overall, I’ve felt much better this week. I was nervous at several points and lockdown continues to be rubbish. But I’m feeling less sick now and I’ve got a bit more energy, which is a real joy!

The ministry little win this week was setting the dates for church council meetings until April as well as the Annual General Meeting.

Bye for now!